In post 49, CuddlyCaucasian wrote:Those are good points Reck! I hadn't thought about how juries lately have been punishing risky play, although that may be a result of jury members not caring as much and voting for who they like more. Either way, a large part of it is jurors making everything about themselves. I think this could be countered by only allowing each jury member 1-3 questions like we did in RSX.

Yeah, I considered this today. I think limiting FTC speeches to a wordcount and limiting jury questions and responses would be a good start so people dont feel the need to ahve 10 page long bitchfests.

Yeah, I'd definitely say the reason I find it hard to keep modding is that players who maintain the status quo and just play with their friends keep being rewarded, and while I don't think that's not a valid way to play or anything, it's boring to watch it play out every game. I don't know if anything really needs to change though, and I could very well be the problem; my views of what makes an enjoyable game simply don't align with most of the community.

"CC is very [whatever the equivalent of photogenic as it applies to videos]" - racefan12"CC is an objectively attractive person." - Crazy"You look like a happy version of Trent Reznor." - LicketyQuickety"Do you practice sounding like you're high all the time?" - xofelf

In post 47, xRECKONERx wrote:However, the meta has settled again, it seems. And the new meta is some version of "I don't care that people made moves or whatever, I'm going to be mad that people took risks." That's the biggest problem with the modern meta. People don't want to take risks. And if they do -- and those risks pay off -- they're still lambasted for "taking risks". It means that it enforces this meta where people are scared to be the ringleader, scared to make moves, etc. And then, of course, specs & mods are disappointed when their games are boring and nobody's doing anything. It's a vicious cycle.

In order to break the old boring majority alliance/pagong meta, it took some games designed specifically with the aim of breaking that meta. At the tail end of that meta people were constantly complaining and eyerolling about it. And after that meta kinda broke, we got games like Conclave, DW, NAH, Arkham, PSV, Eon. Good, solid games with good, solid winners.

It's gonna take some doing but I think the main issue now is a compounding of multiple problems.- F3s have become more common and that means people are reacting to this. In F2 meta, you could take someone else with you who had also fucked people over and force the jury to choose. Now, juries seem to just default to picking the person who was the least controversial in a F3.- For some reason, the idea of being an iconic juror who really gives it to the finalists has become some kinda goal, even for finalists who weren't bad, making it just toxic.- Juries for so long have disincentivized risky or aggressive play, and now that's what the meta has reacted to, resulting in fairly meh characters making it far.

I'm sure there are other things to this as well but I think it's worth noting that when metas get stale, we see a droop, and we have to actively work to fix it.

Oooooh boy there's a lot to unpack here and really I should be modding my other game, so gonna keep this brief:

1) You're defining risk here through the lens of big moves, which isn't always the case. One of the things I appreciated a lot about Juno's game was the restraint that she demonstrated throughout the game while correctly identifying and seamlessly navigating her way between "big power players," but that strategy comes with the risk of not being seen by most people and therefore not getting votes at FTC (a risk that she got punished for). It runs the risk of getting taken out for being a "soft target" (could have happened multiple times!). Because everything that happens in the game of Survivor that isn't explicitly winning immunity requires some form of risk management. Taking short-term safe options until you just go out the way you're intended to poses long-term risks (something that very much informed my play, personally, here).

2) Was people being afraid to be the ringleader really a problem this game? Like, really? This game was a leader-heavy game by far, b/w Hermione, Aria, Tracy, Penny, Dan, Regina, Gabi, Lizzie, and Mags (before she flaked). And a leader won, despite followers typically doing better in leader-heavy seasons.

3) Honestly, specs and mods need to have a healthier approach to boring games. The players aren't there for their entertainment, they're there to play the game. Specs get a small lens into the game, anyways

4) No, juries are defaulting for voting who they want to win. People bitching about that meaning people voting for "someone who didn't play ~objectively the best game~" need to sit down and shut up because the best game in the context of a given scenario is the one that gets the majority of jury votes. If that's a game that's boring to watch or one that you don't find stylistically appealing, then that's on you. For as much as you're complaining, our last five anon-Survivor winners (Hermione, Karass, Alexis, Kawazu, Shaco) all played remarkably different games and all won in unique, interesting ways. I don't think there's an actual problem with who's winning.

And yeah, Juno came close to winning and a lot of people didn't like that, but you know what? At the end of the day, Juno turned up for FTC. She played a game that was laudable in a lot of ways, and yeah, she would have lost to Aria if she'd "gotten her way," but at the same time that isn't going to be a thing that defines every jurors votes? She earned the votes she got, but she ended up falling a bit short.

5) I disagree by what you mean by "deserve it." You read my FTC question as bitter, when I was pretty much equally harsh to all three of you because I didn't want to give you softball questions. Finalists aren't entitled to being coddled.

6) Again, disagree about juries discouraging risky play, both by the definition of "risk" and by the variety of winners we've had who've all won in crazy diverse ways.

In post 49, CuddlyCaucasian wrote:Those are good points Reck! I hadn't thought about how juries lately have been punishing risky play, although that may be a result of jury members not caring as much and voting for who they like more. Either way, a large part of it is jurors making everything about themselves. I think this could be countered by only allowing each jury member 1-3 questions like we did in RSX.

Yeah, I considered this today. I think limiting FTC speeches to a wordcount and limiting jury questions and responses would be a good start so people dont feel the need to ahve 10 page long bitchfests.

Honestly I'd be in favor of "Juror gets a single post, each finalist gets a single response" (basically what I did in Medevac).

It would also set us up better to F2F instead of having FTC go on for like 2 hours.

In post 54, CuddlyCaucasian wrote:Yeah, I'd definitely say the reason I find it hard to keep modding is that players who maintain the status quo and just play with their friends keep being rewarded, and while I don't think that's not a valid way to play or anything, it's boring to watch it play out every game. I don't know if anything really needs to change though, and I could very well be the problem; my views of what makes an enjoyable game simply don't align with most of the community.

I think I said once that somebody should mod a very small #survivorgamechangers with heaps of off-meta risky players and newbies. I think the players who use the style cc is against will win big games with a lot of those players lots, so why not have a real small game w/ lots of styles of player. .itd be fun and if it fails short AF.

I agree w/ like max three qs for jurors. Like so.e past games have jury threads of like 10 posts each, some here had 150

In post 54, CuddlyCaucasian wrote:Yeah, I'd definitely say the reason I find it hard to keep modding is that players who maintain the status quo and just play with their friends keep being rewarded, and while I don't think that's not a valid way to play or anything, it's boring to watch it play out every game. I don't know if anything really needs to change though, and I could very well be the problem; my views of what makes an enjoyable game simply don't align with most of the community.

In what world did that happen this game?

He means like in game friends, not ms friends. That's an issue we should not get into here plz plz plz

Reck, you voted for Shaco. Don't you have some sort of idea why the least controversial/not risky/'nicest' person gets votes? It's certainly not because the jury cares less.Besides, the winner of this game wasn't that type of player, and DBZA/Medevac happened. Y'all might be overreacting a bit.

(PSV and Eon are terrible examples of pagongs going out of style imo with Bluebell and Reinbow stronk )

I HATE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE GO JUMP INTO A FREEZING LAKE - Mr. FreezePlan B: it serves you right if i (hug) you in the face though, right?I love it when people talk about my brutal murder in front of me, it's actually my secret fetish - Sangmin

1) Fair enough. But I don't think lying in the background is risky. I think the risk management I'm talking about is "risks you take to get to FTC" not "I got to FTC now I risk losing it". That's the big difference.

2) The specific complaint being discussed re: toxicity is the fact that leaders are scared to do it because those playstyles don't pay off usually, and if they do, they don't payoff well. It's a meta problem, not a specific person problem, which you kinda missed in your response.

3) Agreed.

4) No, disagree. If it suddenly became "I am going to vote for the player who had the hottest avatar", I highly doubt you'd be saying this. Therefore, there is an objective measure between juries voting for who they want vs juries being asstoots.

5) Can you please show me where I said deserve it because I don't see that anywhere.

6) This isn't just about winners, it's about what the referendum on the game as a whole is. And I would argue the problem is that even the ones like Herm & Alexis & Kawazu who won almost DIDN'T win during FTC because of the exact sentiment being discussed.

In post 62, Shadoweh wrote:Reck, you voted for Shaco. Don't you have some sort of idea why the least controversial/not risky/'nicest' person gets votes? It's certainly not because the jury cares less.Besides, the winner of this game wasn't that type of player, and DBZA/Medevac happened. Y'all might be overreacting a bit.

(PSV and Eon are terrible examples of pagongs going out of style imo with Bluebell and Reinbow stronk )

Yeah, I did. And I've said publicly my toxicity to the final jurors was bullshit and that, even though I'm glad Shaco won, I hate the fact that he won basically simply because Shaco was less offensive.

Like, I blamed myself partially for the bitter antijury. I think an offensive game is fine.

I think when a large swath of the community says "Hey this isn't just like disagreements this is a big deal" coming in and telling people they're overreacting is pretty fucking insensitive and not constructive at all? We just had the entire modteam of Neds quit the community after this. And the runner up. Let's stop being like "oh well I think I'm technically right so neener-neener" and instead of worrying about being right, start worrying about finding a solution that makes people feel more at ease.

Spectators have always been pretty vocal about not liking games, I know all the way back in Season Finale everyone tore the purple tribe apart for not taking out Jesse. I think the biggest change is that spectator forums are more active now.

Also maybe I'm overreacting, but there's gotta be some reason that over the course of this game all three mods of it have grown to hate the state of the Survivor community, to the point of wanting to leave

"CC is very [whatever the equivalent of photogenic as it applies to videos]" - racefan12"CC is an objectively attractive person." - Crazy"You look like a happy version of Trent Reznor." - LicketyQuickety"Do you practice sounding like you're high all the time?" - xofelf

1) Lying in the background has risks, too. Look at players like Rizz and Steve and Maddie who didn't make it to the end, or the countless other "floaters" or "non-entities" in the game who got picked off pre-merge. There's always risk in not doing everything you can to keep yourself in the game/not making moves. Inaction is still a decision, and one thing Juno articulated reasonably well how she approached that.

2) Can you really say that, though, after how many big moves this game had? How many big moves DBZ had? How many big moves (early) that Nexus had? People aren't actually afraid of making big moves, and not every round has to be a Regina boot.

4) Yeah there's clearly a line. Until someone is saying "pick a number" for realzies (because memeing it the way Kelly did in 2nd chances is lulz), we aren't across it. Like, I'd argue that even Valla's "hot guys pls" question had merit to it in the sense that it was asking the three finalists how well they knew her (granted, through a really bizarre lens but yeah)

5) "even for finalists who weren't bad" is what I'm paraphrasing.

6) For one, Alexis never really got close to losing. For Kawazu, there were clear, identifiable things he did that nearly cost him the game because he was trolling "for the lulz" (and I still contest that the aesthetics of Zeno winning would have been absolutely amazing). Hermione almost didn't win because she lost jury votes at FTC that were up in the air.

But in the end, "almost" doesn't really matter in Survivor. Brian only won 4-3, but he's considered one of the most dominant players of all time.

In post 67, BROseidon wrote:1) Lying in the background has risks, too. Look at players like Rizz and Steve and Maddie who didn't make it to the end, or the countless other "floaters" or "non-entities" in the game who got picked off pre-merge. There's always risk in not doing everything you can to keep yourself in the game/not making moves. Inaction is still a decision, and one thing Juno articulated reasonably well how she approached that.

2) Can you really say that, though, after how many big moves this game had? How many big moves DBZ had? How many big moves (early) that Nexus had? People aren't actually afraid of making big moves, and not every round has to be a Regina boot.

4) Yeah there's clearly a line. Until someone is saying "pick a number" for realzies (because memeing it the way Kelly did in 2nd chances is lulz), we aren't across it. Like, I'd argue that even Valla's "hot guys pls" question had merit to it in the sense that it was asking the three finalists how well they knew her (granted, through a really bizarre lens but yeah)

5) "even for finalists who weren't bad" is what I'm paraphrasing.

6) For one, Alexis never really got close to losing. For Kawazu, there were clear, identifiable things he did that nearly cost him the game because he was trolling "for the lulz" (and I still contest that the aesthetics of Zeno winning would have been absolutely amazing). Hermione almost didn't win because she lost jury votes at FTC that were up in the air.

But in the end, "almost" doesn't really matter in Survivor. Brian only won 4-3, but he's considered one of the most dominant players of all time.

even for finalists who weren't bad meaning finalists who weren't OTT toxic and awful and deserving of ridicule and scorn